Artist Overcomes Hearing Loss, Work Acquired by Local Museums

photo: Philip Liborio Gangi

Richmond District resident Carol Ragle holds a book of her drawings. Ragle, whose work is
housed in numerous Bay Area museums, started doing sketches on her own in 1995.

By Dmitry Kiper

"She has a gift for getting inside the person," says Roy Ragle, the husband of graphic artist Carol Ragle.

Ragle's work has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara and the Oakland Museum. She received compensation for most of the artwork, but some she donated. In addition, Ragle and her husband have donated 178 prints and drawings from their own art collection to the Legion of Honor.

"People are my favorite subject," Ragle says. She uses disposable technical black ink pens to draw her favorite subjects.

When asked about her ability to capture the personality of her subjects, she confidently replied, "It's intuitive." However, she admits that when she starts out on a drawing, she doesn't think about achieving a particular goal. Because of her fluid skills, her husband compares her to "an improvising jazz musician."

Ragle is 63 years old, has short brown hair, wears large glasses and works as a part-time data processor. From 1962 to 1995, she had a career in advertising illustration.

She met her husband Roy at San Diego State University. They have been living on Fulton Street, near Golden Gate Park, since 1976. The couple has been married for 34 years.

It was only in 1995, when her career in advertising illustration was over, that she began to draw consistently outside the workplace.

Beginning in 1995, she worked in an art supplies store on Geary Boulevard until the store closed in 2002. While working at the store, she made a habit of going over to Tart to Tart (a next door cafe) during her lunch break, ordering a cup of coffee, sitting in the corner and quietly drawing unsuspecting customers.

Because of her current job, she goes to Tart to Tart only on the weekends.

"People sitting in cafes are not self-conscious," Ragle said. But, she admits, most of the time they are not aware of being watched and drawn.

Whether drawing people while sitting in a local cafe or in the armchair of her living room, Ragle thrives on art.

"I just love it," she says.

Ragle started to lose her hearing at the age of seven and a few years ago she lost all hearing in her right ear. She makes no secret of how hard the hearing loss has been on her, first as a child and then as an adult.

"I never had a group of friends growing up," Ragle said. "If you have a hearing loss all your life, you're cut off socially and have a sense of being in the background. It's hard to tell where the effects of hearing loss begin and end."

Although she is not quick to attribute the hearing loss as the cause of any particular shortcomings in her life, it has forced her to rely more heavily on her eyes, thereby giving her a certain artistic edge when she draws. 

"She uses her eyes as her ears," says her husband Roy, who is also a well-established artist.

Roy also feels the unique character of the Richmond District helps his wife.

"The character of the neighborhood keeps changing," he said, "and this change continues to provide an opportunity for Carol to exercise her gift."

Despite her accomplishments, she expresses both regret and acceptance when it comes to her lack of formal training as an artist - for which her hearing loss was greatly responsible.

"My hearing loss was a handicap in classes," she says, which resulted in "gaps" of knowledge. In art classes, where oral instruction is often crucial to an artist's development, she had to rely on her eyes and intuition. 

Ragle's life, both as an artist and as a person, was, and still is, intertwined with hearing loss.

"I'm a bit shy," she admits.

"It's like an invisible handicap," said her husband, while banging his crutches together to give an example of a visible handicap.

Even though Ragle is mostly deaf, with some effort she can have a one-on-one conversation in a quiet room. She says her hearing loss has opened her eyes to a whole different world. While the hearing loss has sharpened her vision, it made the pursuit of a continuous education in art and most normal social-interaction situations very difficult.

"I don't think of myself as an artist. I think of myself as a craftsman," Ragle said. "I don't think about self expression. I think about how I'm going to craft these drawings."

Even though Ragle insists that she doesn't have a preconceived concept in her drawings, she admits that she has a certain intuition for drawing the personality of her subjects.

"I'm very sensitive to facial and body expressions," she said.